AJ Images Increases Speed, Efficiency With New Polar Cutter

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Press release from the issuing company

KENNESAW, Ga., July 6, 2005 – AJ Images, a printing, bindery and electronic prepress imaging center based in Roselle, N.J., recently installed a POLAR 115 XT with POLAR RA-4 Jogger and Compucut from Heidelberg. The new cutter was chosen to increase efficiency in the shop while enabling the company to produce larger volumes of commercial print jobs for its national and regional client base.
“Our industry is increasingly competitive due to overcapacity in the market today,” said Arnold Greebel, AJ Image’s vice president of marketing and sales. “This means that we must become even more efficient and accurate to remain competitive and increase profitability. With the speed and accuracy of the POLAR cutter, we are able to produce a larger volume of jobs while exceeding our customer promise of quick turn-around times.”
The new POLAR cutter is being used to produce a wide range of commercial print work, including brochures, catalogs, annual reports and direct mail pieces. Greebel noted a significant increase in production speeds across the bindery since the installation in December. Describing the machine as “extremely fast,” Greebel reported that jobs that once took one day to cut now take less than half a day. In addition, the POLAR’s high level of automation no longer requires AJ Images to staff a full-time cutter, further increasing efficiency in the shop.
POLAR cutting systems from Heidelberg are a new generation of high-speed cutters and cutting systems designed to increasingly automate the entire production cycle of a print shop. Built for all types of print shops, POLAR systems include tailor-made solutions to meet the different business needs of quick printers, commercial printers and specialist printers. The top-of-the-line model POLAR 115 XT is equipped with numerous functions and modes of operation, enabling maximum automation and a high output for users such as AJ Images.
In addition to its new POLAR 115 XT, AJ Images also is taking advantage of Heidelberg’s POLAR Compucut software system to further reduce makeready time. POLAR Compucut automatically generates cutting programs using prepress data. This feature allows the cutter to be programmed for the next job while the current job is still in the execution phase. The system is “super-efficient,” Greebel said, pointing to the ability to pre-program jobs as a major advantage in turning jobs around faster.
“The added efficiency of electronic workflow from the desktop to the bindery that we have realized from POLAR Compucut is a key benefit for us,” says Greebel. The smooth installation process and superior results the company has seen since installing the POLAR cutter with Compucut have led the company to consider adding another Heidelberg to its shop. “We’re looking to upgrade our stitcher in the near future,” he said.
Founded in 1967, AJ Images specializes in the production of medium-run, high-quality printed communications. A J Images is a small- to mid-sized shop with 25 employees. The company has been a Heidelberg customer for 30 years.